Nothing to See in Idaho but Potatoes
As
wrote a couple of weeks ago, there is absolutely nothing worth seeing in Idaho other than fields and fields of potatoes. In this case that includes a little potato themed AirBnB that my wife visited for our wedding anniversary. I saw the advertisement for the Big Idaho Potato Hotel a while back and I knew immediately that I had to find a way to reserve the place for Jody and me to stay for a romantic getaway.The residence has an interesting backstory because it was once the actual “touring” potato that the Idaho Potato Commission used to send out to other states to promote our potato farming industry. Owner Kristie Wolfe bought the 6-ton potato and refurbished it to be a somewhat luxurious place to stay. When she bought the potato, it was at the end of its life cycle and would have been destined for a landfill somewhere. Instead, Kristie put in a lot of work to provide a truly unique experience.
The potato is a single, and honestly actually romantic, room residence that combines rustic sensibilities with mid-century modern furnishings. When Jody and I arrived, we were delighted to find a turntable and vinyl records to play as we chatted the night away. We were even more ecstatic when we saw that one of the LPs featured the music of Dean Martin. Let’s just say that we both are huge fans of Dean-o and we put that album on the player and talked into the wee hours of the morning.
The Big Idaho Potato Hotel is located in the farmland east of Boise and is pretty close to a commercial train track, so you do hear trains pass by in the night. It’s also very dark out in the farmland after the sun sets and you’ll have to rely on some very kindly placed trail lights to make your way from the room to the rest room, which is located in the silo you can see on the left hand side of the top picture. The room is cozy and romantic, but you do have to make a choice about how and where you want to eat your dinner. You’ll have about a 30 minute drive if you want to dine in downtown Boise or you can bring your own food if you wish. We opted for the dinner on the town and a nice breakfast at Goldy’s Breakfast Bistro, but not before we said our farewells to the on site Jersey cow Dolly.
Oh, wait!
I just revealed that Idaho also has cows. Before you know it, I might also reveal that we have some of the most beautiful mountains in the world (some of which you can see far off to the north in the picture of Dolly). Take as only one example the Boulder White Cloud Mountains of Central Idaho. They are breathtakingly spectacular with the highest mountain, Castle Peak, comes in at 11,816 feet (3,601 meters). The White Clouds are only one of many beautiful mountain ranges in the state, but they are also one of the more overlooked and easier to visit if you get a hankering for the wilderness.
🎬🎞️The Lamentations of Luke Y. Thompson🎞️🎬
has been posting a lot of reviews lately at his rebranded website, and I’ve got to say that I love the name. His former name had a certain charm, but Mortal Cinema really captures Luke’s knowledge of film and pushes it to the forefront. I’m a HUGE fan of American Folktales, both heroic and horrific. It never ceases to amaze me how a nation without history managed to create its own mythology with living gods like Paul Bunyan and John Henry who embody the human spirit fighting against the soulless machine or Johnny Appleseed and Febold Feboldson who are the avatars of America’s migratory nature. I even own a role playing game supplement where players can make their own American Folk Heroes to champion the individual spirit.
Not all of America’s Folktales are heroic though, we’ve got plenty of a more sinister nature. From Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Lovecraft’s Dunwich to Manly Wade Wellman’s John the Balladeer and John Thunstone, there are plenty of tales of horror and woe. That doesn’t even include our obsession with Cryptids, and you bet I’m going to visit the Bigfoot themed Corn Maze in Emmett.
In my opinion, we don’t make enough horror films about American Folklore monsters here in the United States. When we do make them, they tend to be pretty darn memorable though and that is certainly the case with Pumpkinhead. According to an early Washington Post review of the film, the movie is based on a poem by Ed Justin who was also known as “Honest” Ed Justin who was an advertising and merchandising guru for Hanna-Barbera cartoons (I’m not kidding). That merchandising connection makes it all the more appropriate that Luke is doing a review of Syndicate’s new Pumpkinhead action figure. There have been many action figures for the character over the years and this one looks very interesting.
In a review that foreshadows what a lot of people are saying, Luke gives a positive but somewhat dissatisfied review of the most recent film version of The Toxic Avenger. Luke praises the technical skill, and the story for the most part, but is left a bit hollow by the fact that it doesn’t push boundaries as much as Troma films have done in the past. It’s a kinder and gentler Toxie in a genre that was never meant to be kinder and gentler.
That dissatisfaction with The Toxic Avenger is expressed in
’s recent podcast discussing generational reactions to film and I cannot help but wonder if we really have entered into a new era of repression of the outré, but one that comes from within rather than from external pressure. One doesn’t need the PMRC if the film makers are willing to tame themselves. I recently included Ken Russell’s film The Devils in my Scary Season Week 2 list of films, but I cannot help but wonder if the film was made today if Russell wouldn’t have made a much tamer film. Were the film not over 50 year old, modern critics would likely attack the opening scene.Timur Kuran writes about the phenomenon of Preference Falsification in his book Private Truths: Public Lies. This is where people express opinions to fit with social pressure, something John Stuart Mill warned against in On Liberty, and was a central component of 1984 and yet the modern surveillance society through a process Jeffrey Edward Green called “ocular democracy” makes people afraid to push boundaries or face cancellation. Green thought of ocular democracy as a good thing, but I cannot help but wonder if it hinders us getting truly transgressive art that challenges us to engage with deep moral questions.
has opened a series of articles on the films of Robert Altman, my guess is in part due to the fact that Criterion has a new series dedicated to him and because…well he’s a fantastic film maker. People often talk about how important and influential Altman is, but I don’t think we have enough recent deep examinations of his oeuvre and so I eager to read Robert’s full series and to follow along in my viewing.
As always,
provides significant grist for the genre contemplating mill with her latest horror moments series. Her last one was about horror in The Sopranos, and it was excellent, but her latest is right up my alley. She’s covering horror themes in cartoons and discusses the Gashlycrumb Tinies of Edward Gorey. This article contrasts Gorey’s work with that of Charles Addams and asks us whether we are cat or dog Goths in our horror sensibilities, I’m a catdoggoth for the record and I think that sounds like a wonderfully Lovecraftian horror. We must remember that while Lovecraft wrote about The Cats of Ulthar, Clifford the Big Red Dog is a Kaiju and sometimes a Lovecraftian God as well.I have an upcoming post responding to Dr. King’s latest series about a surprising cartoon child killing, but that will have to wait about a week.
shares how she is experiencing what is a common dilemma for Tolkien fans who play role playing games. Namely, what game system is the best fit for playing games in Middle Earth. The old Iron Crown Enterprises Middle Earth Role Playing is an arcane jumble of tables and powers that seem beyond the ken of the characters in the books. Ironically where the rules failed to capture Tolkien’s world, the sourcebooks did so in spades and remain some of the best material on Tolkien’s mythopoeic creation. Dungeons & Dragons may feature Halflings, Elves, Dwarves, and Dragons, but it’s mechanics are designed for either Sword & Sorcery tales (Older Editions) or modern Sandersonian/Anime inspired fantasy (5e and 6e).
Jennifer points out that the modern Tolkien inspired game (The One Ring) is the first to capture the mechanics of the book almost perfectly, but in doing so presents a more mundane experience than she wants. Yes, Tolkien was showing us how the little people matter in great conflicts, but if you want to explore the world as potential heroes it’s not the best system. She is leaning towards Dungeon Crawl Classics and I’m eager to see how she thinks it does. I might lean a little Runequest or Savage Worlds (a free and legal Test Drive version of an older rules set is here), but I think DCC might have a few tricks up its sleeves.
In what must have been a case of wonderful serendipity Dr.
has an interesting piece on Nunsploitation that ties in nicely with my recent discussion of The Devils. While she doesn’t mention the English tendency to engage in “depravity camp” when dealing with the sins of France, she does highlight how nun’s being a Catholic thing allows/encourages Protestants to fetishize them in certain ways. I cannot believe that this exploration of the concept was dedicated to a mere Note and I hope she expands on the bit. As it is, this includes a fantastic reading and viewing list for those of you interested in the genre. Oh, and if you are, Criterion currently has a series of Nunsploitation films on their Channel.
While I love to recommend role playing games based on where my personal whims take me, from time to time I find myself asking “what role playing game would I recommend to [insert particular Geekerati subscriber here]?” In this case, I was wondering what role playing game I might recommend to both
and . Both have an interest in horror as a genre, but are in different places in their horror genre journeys and I was wondering if there was a game that could fit both of their experience levels and provide a fun play experience for them and their friends.I had to keep in mind that Dr. King was an experienced playwright, but inexperienced as a table top role playing game and that I had no idea of Faintest had played any role playing games ever. It didn’t take me long to come up with what I thought was the perfect game, Dread from The Impossible Dream.
The game has almost no game mechanics at all because it uses a Jenga Tower to determine when/if any truly risky action the players might attempt succeeds or fails. If they are able to remove and place a piece (and it’s at all possible for the character to do an action) they succeed. If the tower collapses, the character is removed from play in a manner consistent with the genre of horror being played. In Scooby Doo horror, they would just exit stage left pursued by a bear. If it’s a slasher film, they’d exit in a much more gruesome way. The genre of the game is up to the group and what level of horror they want to engage in is based on what they feel comfortable talking about.
Regardless of whether the descriptions are graphic or not, the use of a Jenga tower to determine success/removal adds a wonderful feeling of dread to the game. The game truly lives up to the promise and provides fantastic advice on how to structure and run a game. I’d be interested to hear Dr. King’s thoughts on their Act layout as well.
The game has no character statistics. Instead, each player is handed a questionnaire written by the Host that asks them key questions about their past. These questions are used to frame what each character can and cannot do as well as provide narrative opportunities within play. It’s a great game.
If I’m going to mention Pumpkinhead the movie, I’m not leaving out the Misfits song.
I’ve recommended Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells in the past because it is amazingly beautiful, but that beauty is often transcended by the fact that it was used in The Exorcist for wonderfully dramatic effect. The song has a a nice melodic instability that lends itself to horror, but bassline is soothing and beautiful and as the song transitions through its various movements you hear a number of wonderful phrases.
How and when we first hear music shapes how we experience it later. My favorite example of this comes from when my wife was in film school. She made a short horror film that took place in the USC parking structure where a woman is being stalked and is in danger (this was before P2 came out BTW). She asked if I new of any horror movie music she could use as reference music in an early edit and I played the theme from Halloween, which is inspired by Tubular Bells. She loved it, but I didn’t realize she hadn’t seen Halloween and didn’t know how iconic the song was. So when she played the early edit of her film for her classmates, instead of feeling the tension she felt watching her edit they all laughed. She knew immediately what had happened but it was still a minorly embarrassing moment.
A Forest is featured on one of my two favorite albums from The Cure and it is a wonderfully haunting song that captures the mood of walking through a foggy wood perfectly. When anyone asks me why The Cure is considered a Goth band, I play this for them.
The only flaw in the recorded version of A Forest is the use of drum machine. It’s an even better song live than recorded, but there is one band that mastered the use of drum machine in their Gothic music and that is Sisters of Mercy and Doktor Avalanche, their never tiring drum machine.
There will be no long prequel to the individual recommendation this week because I recommended seven movies earlier this week and I have to recommend seven more next week and I want to be able to comment on them. Since I am writing at least 28 horror movie recommendations this month, I’ll also exclude horror from this month’s Geekly Rundown Recommendations.
Without any more fanfare, this week’s recommendation is Evil Under the Sun starring Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith, James Mason, and my favorite Lancelot, Nicholas Clay.
Given your taste for American folklore, I think you might enjoy The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (not a typo) novel by Stephen Graham Jones. And Idaho does have some great mountains (and potatoes)!